Notes for an Article or Speech in Defence of the April Theses

Published:Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1964,

      Moscow,Volume 24,

      pages32-33.Translated:Isaacs BernardTranscription\Markup:B. BagginsandD. WaltersPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      1999

      (2005).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

(1)Economicdebacle is imminent. Therefore removal of the
      bourgeoisie is a mistake.

(Thisis the conclusion of the bourgeoisie. The more imminent
      the debacle, the more essential is it that the bourgeoisie be
      removed.)

(2)Proletariatis unorganised, weak, lacking
         class-consciousness.

(True.Therefore, the whole task is to fight thosepetty-bourgeoisleaders, the so-called
      Social-Democrats–Chkheidze, Tsereteli, Steklov—who lull the
      masses,
      encourage them to put their trust in the bourgeoisie.

Notunity with these petty bourgeois—Chkheidze, Steklov,
      Tsereteli—bututter defeatof these
      Social-Democrats, who are ruining the revolution of the
      proletariat.)

(3)Revolutionis bourgeois at the present stage. Therefore no
          need for “socialist experiment”.

(Thisargument is an
          out-and-out bourgeois argument. No one talks about a
          “socialist experiment” The concrete Marxist proposition
          requires that institutions now as well as classes be taken
          into account.)

Stranglersof the revolution, by honeyed phrases—Chkheidze,
      Tsereteli, Steklov—are dragging the revolution back,away
      fromthe Soviets of Workers’ Deputiestowardsthe
      undivided sway of the bourgeoisie, towards the usual bourgeois
      parliamentary republic.

Wemust ably, carefully, clear people’s minds and lead the
      proletariat and poor peasantryforward, away from “dual
      power”towards the full powerof the Soviets ofWorkers’ Deputies, and this is the commune in Marx’s sense, in
      the sense of the experience of 1871.

Thequestion is not how fast to move, but where to move.

Thequestion is not whether the workers are prepared, buthowandfor whatthey should be prepared.

Sincethe manifestos and appeals of the Soviet of Workers’
      Deputies on the war, etc., are sheer petty-bourgeois humbug
      designed merely to lull the people to sleep, it is our business
      above all, as I have said, to clear people’s minds, to rid the
      masses of thebourgeoisinfluence of Chkheidze,
      Steklov, Tsereteli and Co.

The“revolutionary defencism” of the Soviet of Workers Deputies,
      i.e., of Chkheidze, Tsereteli and Steklov, is a chauvinist trend
      a hundred times more harmful for being cloaked in honeyed
      phrases, anattemptto reconcile the masses with the
      Provisional Revolutionary Government.

Thedull, unenlightened masses duped by Chkheidze, Tsereteli,
      Steklov and Co. do not realise that the war is a continuation of
      policy, that wars are waged bygovernments.

Itmust be made clear that the “people” can stop the war or
      change its character only by changing theclass
      characterof the government.